Abstract

The maladministration of the Coalition Provisional Authority in its duty, with respect to its failure to take steps to prevent financial criminal activities, led to the generation of illegal funds in occupied Iraq. This maladministration, and consideration of possible methods for depriving criminals of those funds and recovering them for the Iraqi State, remains largely unexplored by the literature. This thesis addresses this gap by first, establishing the maladministration of the Coalition Provisional Authority to meet its obligations as an occupying administration, and second, proposes mechanisms to deal with the problem and recovery of corruptly obtained funds during the Coalition Provisional Authority’s tenure. It is argued that the Coalition Provisional Authority did not take proper and feasible measures in order to prevent financial criminal activities. This maladministration led to the widespread propensity in criminal activities that generated vast amounts of illicit money in occupied Iraq.
This thesis has two Parts. Part One explores the problem of the maladministration of the Coalition Provisional Authority of its duty to prevent financial criminal activities (that generated substantial amounts of illicit funds). It examines the state of military occupation of Iraq, and the duty upon the occupant to create the Coalition Provisional Authority. It demonstrates that there was a duty on the Coalition Provisional Authority to take affirmative steps to prevent financial criminal activities. It considers certain types of financial criminal activities that generated illegal funds, and shows how the Coalition Provisional Authority failed to prevent those activities. In light of the huge amounts of illegal funds generated, Part Two offers solutions for their recovery by examining the feasibility of the criminal forfeiture of corruptly obtained funds generated in Iraq territory and found in US territory; and by showing that civil action is the best alternative mechanism for recovering Iraqi funds that disappeared as a result of corrupt activities during the Coalition Provisional Authority’s tenure.